Catching my breath

Crikey, I've been kept busy since I last blogged my progress on Tuesday. Apologies for that, I'll try to catch up now. Things may seem a little random or disorganised as sleep is trying to get the better of me as I type...

Following a Wednesday morning ¥6900 (NZ$107, £47) breakfast in my hotel room I checked out and headed for Akiba. The Tokyo Met-r-o was back to its normal busy self after the national holiday (culture day) the day before. I headed up to Suehirocho and returned to the surface in "Electric Town". This place never dissappoints and the warm sun was a good excuse to pop into many shops for a quick look round. Unfortunately, due to the fall of exchange rates, the British Pound was worth around 40% less than when I was last here so little shopping took place. The new robots took up a lot of my time and they continue to impress with more tricks every time I see them. No purchase on this trip. :-(

My midday lunch appointment with old colleagues and friends, Kano-san and Alex, was really fun and it was great to see them. We made full use of their local knowledge and had a wonderful, ridiculously cheap and properly Japanese meal followed by another Japanese tradition of Starbucks. I then strolled back down Aoyama Dori, past the office building where I had been working and down to Akasaka before taking a right and returning to the Okura hotel for my bus back to the airport. We made record time (~55 minutes) to Narita, whizzing passed lots of other coaches from the same company, I suspect it must have been our driver's last run of the day.

Queueing at check-in took well over an hour and then I spent another forty minutes in the security area while every single item in my carry-on bag was examined one by one. At least all this meant that I didn't have too much time to kill waiting for my flight. Asahi beers at 200 went down very easily and I was in my seat before I knew it. Air NZ service is second to none and I had a very pleasant flight.

Thursday morning arrived four hours earlier than my body expected and, after being processed through arrivals and biosecurity, I was happy to be greeted by both Clint and Phil who were in the process of buying coffees. It turned out these were necessary to keep us warm as we scurried back to Phil's car in the rain under very low and grey skies. Karen extended the welcome and soon we were out exploring North Shore. Lunch with the enchanting Bex was great, followed by the ferry across from Davenport to Auckland for a good look round there too. The rain, which had abated for much of the afternoon, returned with low, low cloud. Still a great afternoon. The evening was spent with Clint's parents and family for a Bonfire Night BBQ. As the cloud had stuck and the rain continued to fall, much of the traditional pyrotechnics were lost in the fog.

On Friday we set off north on the road towards Paihia. Highlights on the outbound journey included breakfast at Jack's Café, the toilets in Kawakawa, that must be seen to be believed, and a steam railway that runs in the road through the middle of the same town. When continued past Paihia to the Treaty Grounds. These were spectacular in the glorious sunshine.

Then it was out on the water for a spot of sea fishing, my first ever such outing. We chose a small boat that took us out to the very edge of NZ. I managed a couple of keepers and went back to port very happy with myself. Our skipper filleted the catch and we were soon heading back to Auckland and Karen's culinary efforts were wonderful and greatly appreciated.

Saturday saw us head down to Pukekohe to watch Clint's cousin who races V8 cars. Things were busy in the garage as preparations were made for the start of the new season. Clint and I had a go at taking some decent pictures that could be used for promotional stuff this year and we were almost successful(!). Then it was off to the airport, the Koru Club Lounge and eventually Queenstown in the south island. Having a drink around the lake in this most gorgeous of small towns was a pleasure. However, Fergburger's "Big Al" was enough to finish off both myself and Phil (Clint wimped out with a "little lambie".

First thing this morning, Sunday, we headed over to the Shotover Jet boats and enjoyed a coolish, dampish blast down and up the river - all very exciting. Then it was back into town and to hire a car for some exploring. We headed up to Glenorchy, back via Queenstown to Arrowtown, via a bungy bridge and winery/cheesery to Cromwell and finally Clyde. The scenery throughout the day is just the most amazing to be found anywhere on our planet. Learning a little bit of NZ's history was fun and were all looking forward to finding our own nuggets of gold in this Wild West part of the World. Once again it was time to head back to Queenstown, a steak dinner, some Geocaching (in the dark with no GPSr) and then home to the hotel, bed and blogging catch-up.

Tuesday: Bumming around Tokyo

I took the opportunity of waking early to have a wander around Minato-ku, the area of Tokyo where I stayed when I was working here in '06-'07. After arriving under cloudy skies on Monday, Tuesday's weather was absolutely perfect - not a cloud all day and plenty warm enough to need nothing more than a t-shirt. The walk, and plenty of fluids from the ubiquitous vending machines, sorted out my every-so-slightly thick head from Roppongi the night before.

There's so much to see around here, and I feel extremely bad for not having found these places when I would have had time to explore them more thoroughly. Shiba Park is fun, with tannoy announcements in Japanese and English warning dog owners of expected behaviour. The Zojoji temple is a gem and generally the whole area is very nice. Tokyo Tower was busy with people waiting for buses and a concert platform being set up. There was also an impossibly large NZ rugby ball building, unexplained and quite surreal.

Lots more police than I recall around the American Embassy and many more road closures. Still, Tokyo feels like the safest place on the planet.

Maki-san and Kashima-san, two friends from my old IBM team, met me in Ryōgoku for lunch and took me to a fantastic restaurant for chankonabe, not far from the Kokugikan Hall. I'm happy to report I declined the Sumo-sized offerings and am not planning any career change in that direction just at the moment. Sitting on the floor was challenging to my old joints but fun nonetheless.

We then had a look around the impressive Edo-Tokyo museum, housed in possibly the craziest building I've ever been in. The massive hall is suspended ~50m in the air for no obvious reason. I knew when I was taking the photo that the sheer scale of the space would be lost. It was strange to see so many young Tokyo-jin looking around, I suspect not many English teenagers would willingly visit such a place if they had a choice.

From there, we took the Mizube Line water-bus down the Sumida river to Hama-rikyū and had a gentle wander around the gardens. When you're travelling around Tokyo on the Metro or in taxis you never really get to see the waterways that are in fact all around. That's another bit of the city I managed to miss in the seven months I was here.

We finished the day on 46F of the Dentsu building in Shiodome. The city view from up there is breathtaking - unfortunately the windows don't lend themselves to photography. The meal was equally impressive with fantastic gohan (my favourite) steamed in stone pots along with lots of beef, vegetables and seafood. It was sad that the day went so quickly and I'm already planning to return the favour of hospitality when my friends visit the UK. Perhaps the 2012 Olympics will tempt them to make the trip.

Today's plan is a trip to Akihabara, "Electric Town", to peruse the technology that will be on the shelves in the UK in a few years from now. Then I'm meeting some friends for lunch before heading back to the airport and another 11 hours in the air down to New Zealand.

The first hangover (it must be day 2)

300 yen beers in Tameiko-sanno went down far too easily. Conversation was fun with Peter, Keith, Robert, Gary and Shaun (Sean, Shorn etc.) who was quite eloquently arguing that "vender" is the correct spelling of the word. iPhones seem to be everywhere and their constant vibration was almost too much for Peter (as he'd lost his last Friday).

Rather predictably, Peter's idea of "old-school Yakitori" in Ebisu turned into silliness at Propaganda in Roppongi. Keith showed off his gambling skills and I ended up staggering back to the hotel in the early hours. There, my body clock should be just right by the time I get down to NZ.

Base camp one - Tokyo Okura

Sure enough, we were less than 15 minutes late into Narita after an uneventful flight. I managed to see a bit of the Western Siberian Plain before dosing off at Surgut and waking again over Khabarovsk. At 600Mph that means I must have got around four hours sleep, not bad at all.

Immigration was swift, the fingerprints and photo done by a quite amusing NEC gizmo and my bag appeared amongst the first few. A customs officer with no English didn't waste any of his time on me, neither did the Friendly Airport Limousine lady who made me wait four(!) minutes before I was being whisked into Tokyo centre.

Quite a lot has gone on in two and a half years since my last visit with lots of changed buildings and new roadways. Some things I'd forgotten about remain the same; every employee of the coach company bowing to every departing coach, crash barriers painted white and spotlessly clean on both sides, spotlessly clean high polish chrome effluent tankers and the ever popular announcement on the coach "please do not use portable phones as these annoy the neighbours".

The Okura is exactly as it was, and perhaps has been since 1962. It's nothing short of embarrassing having to say "good afternoon" individually to the thirty or so bell staff littering the "robby". I suppose this is the price of being treated like royalty.

Now I've got an hour to compose myself before I head out to meet my Suzuka 2006 GP buddy and a number of his chums. It seems I make a good excuse to go out for too much beer and "old-school Yakitori", whatever that may involve.

Waiting for the call

I sorry to report I've already suffered my first flight delay. The inbound flight is roughly 30 mins late, so shall be our departure. However, I expect a little gentle speeding over the Arctic will see us arrive in Tokyo on time(ish).

The business lounge is remarkably quiet. As usual, I'm outnumbered around 7:1 by my Nihonjin brothers and sisters. Including me there's only two Brits so it seems JAL's imminent request for government help is indeed most earnest.

Didn't manage a photo of the quizzical totty who helped me fill out my thoughts on the service I've received so far. Probably for the best. Instead here's one of aeroplanes - Cool!

Final systems' check

Not done the email-to-blog thing before from this phone so I thought I'd take the opportunity of walking the beast to do just that. The woods are lovely at the moment and all the fallen spikey tree fruit keeps her to the paths so we don't end up heading home all dirty. At least that should be true if I don't fall down any holes while I'm typing.

This post will also reveal to me how attached photos get formatted. Check out those eyes!

Getting ready for the off

Getting ready for the off, certainly, and getting ready for a short flurry of blogging activity to keep the extended family back home appraised of progress on my short trip to the other side of the Globe.

On this page, in the right-hand column, you'll note my recent Twitterings are displayed. Brief, and perhaps pithy, updates should appear there frequently, should anyone be worried about exactly how far I've got.

In around 18 hours I will be setting off down ever faithful M1 to Heathrow and the first leg of my trip. Before then it might be a good idea for me to do some packing, buy some essential travel toiletries and medicines, get some foreign currency, walk the dog, have some sleep and a hundred other things, many of which I should have done weeks ago. I need to write this now so I can be sure my technophobe audience can find these ramblings before I leave the UK, I've no desire to be dishing out PC support from a hotel room thousands of miles away.

Working (relatively) close to home in recent months has resulted in me carrying far too much stuff around with me. Regular flying was a good discipline in keeping my shoulder bag down to a reasonable weight. When I came to look at its contents at the beginning of the week I was nothing short of amazed just how much rubbish had accumulated in there (do I really need to carry 1.3TB of external disks?!?). Rationalising my travelling IT has been a bit of a mission but I think I have now only what I really need to reliably remain in touch.

Foreign currency has proved to be a bit of a sad story. While I was getting nearly 240 Yen/£ in early 2007, the best rate I can find for cash today is 145 Yen/£. I hope the price tags in Akihabara are similarly 40% less! Same story for NZDs, 2.81/£ in early 2007, 2.18/£ now. It looks like I'm going to have to choose the cheaper of the caviar whenever I get the opportunity.

Oh well, that's enough for now. Needless to say, I'm quite excited to see some more new places and some old friends. Fingers crossed I'll have some nice weather too.